


Alone Time

by katrinawritesthings



Category: SHINee
Genre: Fantasy, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-21 01:35:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14905977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katrinawritesthings/pseuds/katrinawritesthings
Summary: when you’re a mage and a thief on a secret mission to rescue the kidnapped heir but u get caught and thrown in the dungeon together and also u kissed last night and haven’t talked about it since then“Yes, I am avoiding your point,” Jonghyun says. “Now isn’t the time to talk about things that make me pinker than my magic.” In the near darkness Taemin can’t see the blush he speaks of, but he can hear it in the smallness of his voice. So he admits it. Even in avoidance he acknowledges that Taemin makes him warm inside. “In case you’d forgotten, I’m busy,” Jonghyun says. His voice is a little more controlled and strong now, like he’s getting a handle on himself. “I’m getting us out of here, remember?”tumblrtwitter poll





	Alone Time

In all of his twenty-something years of life, Taemin has never seen a human pace as viciously as Jonghyun does. **  
**

He had thought he’d seen the worst of the mage’s pacing before, when he’d been slightly annoyed at having to wait for permission to enter a castle, or vexed by a trap the enemy mages had set for them to block the road. Hands clasped behind his back, eyebrows knit together, steps shallow and quick, and a voice no more than a dark mutter under breath are all things Taemin has grown accustomed to on their mission. He’d thought that Jonghyun had a short temper, and little to no patience. Now he understands that the Jonghyuns then were quite calm. What Jonghyun is doing now is something else entirely.

His hands open and clench at his sides, nail marks showing in his palms. His eyebrows are drawn closer together than Taemin has ever seen them, dark brown eyes almost black enough to make him fall back into old superstitions of mage’s magic being held in their irises. Taemin is sure that it’s a combination of both his natural magic and the sweat of frustration that is causing his silver hair to puff up and stand on end.

Each step on the cold stone floor of their cell is a hard slap, each turn a rough grate of his heel. In the dim white glow given to them by a magicked lamp outside of their cell Taemin can see that the floor under Jonghyun’s boots is lighter than the rest. Years of dust and dirt and grime must be getting scraped off with the force of his steps. When they aren’t clenched tight, a sharp, hissed stream of words flow from between his teeth.

“Don’t  _fucking_  believe,” he’s muttering. “All this way…,” he trails off into mutters and mumbles that Taemin can’t understand, “...end up here, Goddess knows how far underground…. Their highness bespelled by the _laziest_  and  _smuggest_ …. Out in plain sight, happy as can be, don’t even know they’ve been  _kidnapped-_ -” The turn that follows that one is accompanied by the hard smack of a palm against an iron bar. Taemin watches Jonghyun pace away from their cage door quietly. That won’t do. There’s no good with a mage that broke his own hand in his frustration. “Only a matter of time before the other three are captured as well--”

“Even at the rate you’re going, it will still take more than one night to pace a hole deep enough in the stone to make an escape,” Taemin says blandly, cutting off Jonghyun’s ranting by speaking up for the first time since they’d been caught and thrown in here. He looks calmly into Jonghyun’s furious eyes as he whips around to glare at him in his spot on the floor in the corner. “And I think they plan to kill us before that,” he says.

“Cork it,” Jonghyun snaps. “It’s by  _your_  doing that we landed in this place.” He bites out the words with a harshness that Taemin has seen cow others. Taemin doesn’t shrink because he’s also been there to see that when Jonghyun’s temper rises like this he only speaks the first thing that comes to mind, no matter its measure of truth. He raises his brows and brings his right leg up to rest his arm over the knee.

“Explain,” he says.

_“You,_ ” Jonghyun starts, the word a sharp stab of a sound,  _“you_  were the one leading us through the tunnels,” he says. “It was  _your_ path. They were _your_  maps.  _You_ led me right into the countess’s  _bedroom._ ”

“Well, first off,” Taemin frowns. There are several things untrue about that accusation. “They were the maps given to us by the inkeeper.” Not his. “Second, it wasn’t her bedroom, it was the exact empty, unused bedroom I’d  _meant_  for us to come out in. How was I to know the countess was tumbling one of her maids in secret?” How was he to know that the countess was even lower than her husband, to screech of him being unfaithful while she did the same? Jonghyun huffs loudly, fingers still curling and uncurling at his sides.

“Why didn’t you hear them?” he demands. “Why didn’t you notice something was wrong, how could you just barge in there without so much as a check for--”

“What about you?” Taemin snaps. His temper has been tapped now as well, annoyance flaring into heat behind his eyes. He stands up to take advantage of the few inches he has over Jonghyun and scowls. He won’t sit and let Jonghyun blame him for this. “You’re the mage,” he says. “Why couldn’t you detect them with your wards? Why weren’t  _you_  paying attention?” Jonghyun’s mouth is opening to protest but Taemin takes a loud step forward and cuts him off before it. “This is as much your fault as it is mine, Jonghyun,” he says firmly.

Jonghyun has no sharp reply to that, no vicious words to spit out of his mouth. His eyes are still narrow and dark in the way that unsettles most, but Taemin has grown to know him during the time of their mission together. He’s running out of steam, and he won’t argue when he’s been proven wrong. He’s one of the few that know that there’s more pride to be kept in backing down before furthering your own embarrassment with nonsense. He steps back and glares at the floor, returning again to his pacing. Taemin watches him back and forth before he sighs.

“Placing blame won’t help anyway,” he mumbles. He reaches out just to tap Jonghyun’s shoulder and get his attention again. “Just rest,” he says shortly. “You need to save your strength in case we happen upon a miracle.” There’s no running away if Jonghyun’s feet are already sore from walking a marathon in a dungeon cell. Jonghyun’s reply is a scoff.

“We don’t need a  _miracle,”_  he grumbles. “I’m getting us out.”

“Are you?” Taemin asks. He highly doubts that. “I told you, it’ll take too long to pace a hole into the ground.”

“Just be patient,” Jonghyun snaps. Taemin thinks that patience is a rich demand from someone with so little, but keeps his mouth shut on it. He’s tired. “You’ll see later,” Jonghyun says, and resumes his pacing again. Taemin watches him for another few rounds before he shakes his head and goes back to his corner.

Luckily they let him keep all of the useless stuff in his bag when they threw them in here. Jonghyun wasn’t so lucky; guards are always vastly less trustful of mages. Everything of his was confiscated, from his bag to his abundance of jewelry. If Taemin squints he can see the holes in the lobes of his ears where rings once held their place, and the same for the dots on Jonghyun’s lower lip and left eyebrow. Taemin pulls out his spare woolen cap to place underneath him, to give his bottom some relief from the stone floor. Then he pulls out a needle from his little sewing kit and gets to work at picking gunk out from under his fingernails.

Time passes; Taemin doesn’t know how much, but he does know that all of it is spent in boredom. Somewhere above them the small castle’s bells ring eleven, twelve, one, two. He curses them every time they rouse him from a light doze. If he’s going to be tortured and executed, he wants to be awake and alert for it.

As he scrunches his eyes at the ceiling and rubs a hand over the sore spot on the side of his head (he’d been leaning it against the wall his whole time), he notes a lack of footsteps. Jonghyun took his advice to heart several bells ago and stopped his pacing, though Taemin has heard him rustling and grumbling to himself still. Something is better than nothing so he counts himself triumphant there.

Jonghyun’s voice continues to float over to Taemin’s corner of the cell as he talks to himself. Taemin can’t pick out individual words, so he lets the simple noise of it wash over him. He always did like Jonghyun’s voice, ever since they first met a little over a month ago. Light and amused during conversation, clear and commanding during battle, soothing and gentle during a healing, steady and calming now, as just a half-whispered blend of words into Taemin’s ears. He opens his eyes and blinks sleep out of them to watch Jonghyun. He’s sat against the wall next to their cell door, legs spread and hands around his left foot in a stretch. He continues in a routine of flexibility as Taemin continues to watch him.

He thinks of Jonghyun doing those stretches every morning before they set out and every night before they sleep. He thinks of Jonghyun’s little magefires, of smoke and smells funneled into glass jars to allow their party warm secret breakfasts before resuming their mission. He thinks of calloused hands waving spells cloaked in pink mist. Taemin thinks of the soft skin of those hands, of those hands on him, on his forearms to steady him, on his shoulders to hold him, on his neck and cheek to caress him. He thinks of Jonghyun’s soft brown eyes up close, so close, of Jonghyun’s warm lips pressed to his as Jonghyun’s loud heartbeat thrums next to his own--

“Jonghyun,” he says quietly into the dark of their cell. In the dim lamplight he sees Jonghyun pause and look back at him. Taemin regards him for a slow moment before speaking again. “When you kissed me, in the inn’s kitchen,” he starts. Before he can even finish that Jonghyun is looking away. He bends so far down in his stretch that his nose touches his knee. Taemin has never seen him go that far before.

“We’re not talking about this now,” he says shortly. “Don’t bring up things from days ago like it means anything here.” Taemin blinks at him. Days ago.

“It was yesterday night,” he says. Jonghyun almost hides his second hesitance well in the switch of his legs. As he bends low over his right leg, he keeps his face turned away. Taemin knows from experience that he’s doing it to hide shame.

“Time is relative,” he says. His voice is a clear but quiet firm. “Technically, it doesn’t even exist. It was created by humans to govern lives and quantify labor in order to label it with a price.”

“You’re avoiding my point,” Taemin says. He himself feels like this day has taken place over the course of several, that quiet moment at the inn seemingly distant when compared to their planning, travelling, break in, and subsequent capture. That doesn’t change the fact that last night was still only just last night. One single moon ago. Whether or not Jonghyun feels like it was days ago as well is irrelevant.

“Yes, I am,” Jonghyun says. “Now isn’t the time to talk about things that make me pinker than my magic.” In the near darkness Taemin can’t see the blush he speaks of, but he can hear it in the smallness of his voice. So he admits it. Even in avoidance he acknowledges that Taemin makes him warm inside. “In case you’d forgotten, I’m busy,” Jonghyun says. His voice is a little more controlled and strong now, like he’s getting a handle on himself. “I’m getting us out of here, remember?”

“Are you, though?” Taemin asks. He still doubts it. Jonghyun hasn’t done anything but pace and grumble and stretch since he’d said that the first time. “When will you be doing that, exactly?” he asks.

“I said, be pa--” The clanging of the castle’s bells interrupts his command. Taemin winces as the three gongs scrunch him even all the way down here. He can’t imagine how the nobles and their servants all sleep through the night on the surface.

“Now,” Jonghyun says after the third gong fades away. Taemin blinks as he suddenly pulls his knees back to himself and stands up. “I’m doing it now,” he says. He walks across the cell and invites himself into Taemin’s bag for his flask of water. Tamein would protest, but he only tips out a few drips onto his fingers, rubbing them clean and then wiping them on the inside of his cloak.

“Why now?” Taemin asks blankly.

“Three chimes marks the witching hour,” Jonghyun says. “Magic should be strong enough for this now.” He turns away from Taemin and brings his hands to his face.

“I thought time didn’t exist,” Taemin says.

“Cork it,” Jonghyun snaps. His voice is muffled, like he has his fingers in his mouth. When he turns back around, he’s holding something small in his hand. Taemin frowns, standing up to see better. It’s two things: one a small, flat metal circle, not even a centimeter in diameter, attached to a thin metal rod. The other is a smaller, pinkish red, flat rounded circle with a little hole on one end.

“What are those?” Taemin asks. Jonghyun glances at him, then sticks out his tongue. In the center of it is a hole, small and familiar, empty of it’s usual bright golden beryl stud. He takes his tongue back, then shows Taemin the little pink thing.

“It’s called a retainer,” he says. “Keeps the hole from closing and makes it look like there never was one in the first place.” He hesitates for a second placing it into one of his unclean pockets with a grimace. “After our capture but before they searched us, I swapped my beryl with that, and the piece that closes under the tongue with  _this._ ” He holds up the little circle on the rod, flipping it around to show Taemin. It’s a mirror; a tiny, tiny little round of a mirror, reflecting Taemin’s confused expression back at him in miniscule scale.

“How by the name of the Goddess will that help us?” he asks.

“Don’t bring the Goddess into this,” Jonghyun chides. “She has better to focus on. I’m going to scry with it, obviously.”

“With that tiny bit?” Taemin asks incredulously. He doesn’t believe that for a moment.

“My eyesight isn’t so poor yet that I can’t squint and still see clearly,” Jonghyun tells him. “Now shush. They took my calcite earrings so I can’t ignore your distractions as usual.” Taemin rolls his eyes. He’s never even bothered the mage much.

While he was working, at any rate. He backs away anyway, back to his corner, and watches Jonghyun stare into his tiny mirror with furrowed brows and his finger pressed to his lips. Pastel pink glows around it and his fingers for seconds, minutes. Taemin loses track of time of Jonghyun just standing, staring, and glowing.

Then, so fast that he would have missed it if Jonghyun hadn’t reacted; the mirror glows a deep purple instead. Taemin sits up quickly. He knows that purple. That’s--

“Kibum,” Jonghyun whispers. He holds the mirror that much tighter and bites his lip, staring into it. Soon it starts blinking pink steadily. Taemin recognizes it as a code, but can’t decipher it for himself. Between the five of them, they all have one basic code and then individual ones between each pair of people, for more private matters. Taemin doesn’t know the code shared between Jonghyun and their second mage. He also didn’t  know that one could use scrying to send messages, but he supposes that’s why Jonghyun is the mage and not him. He leans his head on the wall again, taking however many minutes of dozing he can before things start happening again.

Again he loses track of time, but eventually, he hears Jonghyun breathe a slow sigh of relief. He opens his tired eyes to Jonghyun rubbing invisible dirt off of his retainer and then carefully poking the piercing back into his tongue. When he finishes, Jonghyun looks at him. He doesn’t seem surprised at Taemin’s watching him.

“The other three are okay,” he says quietly. “They convinced the count and countess that they’re just passing nobles. The enemy mage  _thinks_  he has Jinki bespelled. They’ve learned about the plans for their majesty. We won’t be able to smuggle them out safely, not with us in here, but it _is_  safe to let the mage keep his hold on them for a little longer. At least until Kibum’s message gets through and the royal army shows up on the doorstep.” His report comes to an end with a growing smirk. “I think by then it will be too late for them to play innocent,” he says. Taemin grins back, amused. He thinks so as well. It’s not every day that the royal heir to the throne is kidnapped and used as a puppet to rise up in the nobility.

“What of us getting out of here, though?” he asks. “Where’s our miracle?” He hasn’t forgotten Jonghyun’s bold claim. Jonghyun nods.

“Minho will come get us,” he says. “You know how he is, always wandering, always somehow two flights away during a jailbreak.” He grins wider than before and Taemin finds himself matching it. Of course. He’s partnered with Minho on missions plenty of times before. He goes for a walk alone to “clear his mind,” makes his way to the dungeons, places a few of his timed devices on the locks, and is comfortably back in view of plenty of witnesses when every cell mysteriously opens all at the same time. Simple, but effective. After their escape they won’t be able to be there to spy more on the traitors, but at least camping on the grounds of the castle they’ll be able to warn the others of any incoming threats.

“Alright,” he says, stretching his arms above his head. He’s stiff from sitting up for so long. Maybe he should take a page from Jonghyun’s book and pace for a bit, or at least stretch. It will still be a while yet before Minho can find a respectable time to go wandering the castle without raising suspicion.

He yawns into his hand. Maybe he’ll try to sleep again instead. That’s what Jonghyun is doing, it looks like. He’s pulled his cloak off, bundled it neatly, and placed it under his head on the floor. Even as he tries to sleep he mouths silent words to himself. Taemin finds it comforting, the occasional soft whispers, the little smacks of his lips, how every so often a full vocal sound will come out by accident. He’d grown accustomed to falling asleep to that during their journey and it helps him doze off now.

When he’s woken again, it’s to the bells. He breathes out a long sigh through his nose as they continue four more times before letting up. He doesn’t know how many rang out before he remembered to focus on them. It can’t be too late in the morning already, though. Minho favors early morning walks for his jailbreaks, right after the guard shift change, when everyone but those he wants to free are still groggy.

Jonghyun is pacing again. Taemin hears it before he opens his eyes. When he does, he finds Jonghyun is much less agitated than before. He’s doing his regular pacing: hands behind his back, steps even, expression serious and focused. Better. He looks tired with bags under his eyes, but Taemin writes that off as a combination of restlessness, his late night, and his insomnia. Taemin watches him pace for a few slow minutes as he fully leaves sleep behind.

“You’re going to enter your elderly years with feet that never lose their ache if you keep this habit up,” he says. Jonghyun pauses in his tracks, looks at him with those deep eyes of his for a moment, and then continues. Taemin shakes his head. Standing up, he plants himself in the middle of Jonghyun’s skinny circle and stops him when he turns to pace towards him. Jonghyun frowns at, but doesn’t move away from, Taemin’s hands on his shoulders.

“There are things you can do to pass time that won’t wear down your ankles,” he says quietly. “Do you know how long it will be until Minho arrives?”

“Some hours yet to go,” Jonghyun says. He’s pushed one of Taemin’s hands off of his shoulder, but only to hold his pointer finger. He once said that he didn’t care to hold hands on account of his sweaty palms. Taemin guesses that this is what he prefers to do instead, and allows him to do it. A small tenderness means he can convince Jonghyun to calm down with less hassle.

“Some hours to go,” he repeats. “And then more time after that to allow him to be gone before his locks spring,” he adds. Jonghyun looks away instead of agreeing. Taemin knows from experience that with him, those two are the same. He slides the hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder to the back of his neck, takes a step closer, and lets his silence draw Jonghyun’s gaze back to him. “When you kissed me last night,” he says again, softly, a quiet murmur.

Like he expected, Jonghyun looks away again, cheeks and ears already heating up pinker than his magic. Just like he’d said earlier. Taemin hooks their fingers together when Jonghyun tries to step away.

“Did you mean for it to be a one time thing, or did you want us to continue at another time?” he asks.

“The latter,” Jonghyun says, clear and firm despite his embarrassment. He never was one to lie about his own intentions. “But not at _this_  time.”

“What else will we do before Minho gets here?” Taemin asks blandly. He lets Jonghyun step away from him and lean his back against the cool wall, but raises his brows expectantly all the same. “Besides pace more,” he adds when Jonghyun opens his mouth. Jonghyun closes it into a small pout.

“I can’t stand the waiting,” he grumbles to the floor. “The pacing is what distracts me from it.”

“I know something else that can distract someone,” Taemin says. He grins slow and lazy when Jonghyun looks at him again. “Someone told me once that time is relative,” he says casually as he steps in front of Jonghyun again. As he leans one forearm lazily next to Jonghyun’s head, he fondly watches the way the little mage’s eyes roll and lips twitch up. “I hear it flies when you’re having fun,” he adds. His reward for that wit is almost a full laugh. Jonghyun lifts both hands; one to settle on Taemin’s hip, the other to slide warm around the back of his neck.

“Jinki warned me you were cheeky,” he says. “I don’t know why I ignored him and fell for you anyway.” His voice is nothing but fond warmth as his thumb rubs slowly over Taemin’s skin. Taemin leans closer so their noses bump and they’re breathing the same air.

“We don’t even have to talk about those feelings that make you so pink,” he says cheerfully. “Just kissing, sweetly, deeply, passionately, wantonly, desperately, lust--”

Jonghyun silences him with the first kind of kiss Taemin mentioned and a pinch to the back of the neck. Taemin doesn’t protest it. He was running out of adjectives from the front of his mind.

At seven slow, warm, deep kisses passed the seventh bell, a sharp twang of palm against metal startles them out of their stupor. Taemin blinks his eyes open slowly, blinks them up at Minho on the other side of their cell door and looking at the two of them with that diagonal frown he favors for disapproval. It’s more effective than usual at the steep angle; Taemin had sat down on the floor a long time ago. Jonghyun shifts comfortably in his lap, arms draped over his shoulders.

“Hi,” he says.

“Do not make me regret risking my life to come save you two  _already,_ ” Minho tells them flatly. No shame at all backs the lazy grin Taemin gives him in reply.

“Nice to see you well too, Minho,” Jonghyun says. His tone is pure innocence as well. Minho rolls his eyes, then grips the bars of their cell so he can speak more seriously.

“Sorry about the daylight rescue, but the word is that they’re to torture you two for information this afternoon,” he says. Taemin winces. That isn’t favorable at all. “You’ll have to bide your time in the tunnels again before it’s safe enough to sneak out under cover of darkness. When you didn’t reply on time last night we left some of your weapons and magecraft near the campsite. You’ll find them.” He glances around quickly after they both nod their understanding, then slips one of his lockbreaking devices into the hole of their cell door. “You have two hours,” he says, and then leaves. Taemin hears him pause briefly at each of the other cell doors, even the ones without prisoners in them.

“Two hours,” Taemin says quietly. “If the guards haven’t fed us by then, I’ll file for a neglect charge on top of the treason trials these nobles will face.” He’s never been in a dungeon so rude as to not feed its prisoners.

“Two hours gives us one and a half to continue where we left off,” Jonghyun murmurs. He doesn’t seem troubled in the slightest at the news of their upcoming escape. He seems more interested in trailing his lips along Taemin’s jawline and to his neck. Taemin hums quietly in thought. Maybe this is why Jonghyun didn’t want to talk about their kissing before they’d gotten out of this predicament. He shouldn’t be _this_ distracted.

Taemin kisses him again anyway. The bells will tell them when an hour remains, and Taemin will tell Jonghyun then that they need to prepare. For now, he’s right. They do have more time to continue with what they were doing.

**Author's Note:**

> #when uve been reading a lot of fantasy books lately so u write a fic  
> #taem is a sneaky stabby stealth babe and jong is their healer and buffer and protector and in desperate times Explosion Mage  
> #he has many many gems nd crystals to help his magic and he wears them as piercings  
> #blue calcite earrings to ward off distractions nd a beryl tongue stud to help him speak clearly  
> #kibum is also a mage but hes more of a fighter and his magic is mostly supplementary than Big like jonghyuns  
> #he magics his eyebrow scar filled in so ppl think hes vain and arrogant and not calculating and deadly  
> #jinki is a rly suave and charming fighter with a rly high magic resistance but he likes mages to think hes easily susceptible  
> #minho is quiet and calm and ppl know hes smart and rly shady but he gives off a '''my secrets are personal''' feel  
> #instead of a ''my secrets will end your treason''' feel so ppl still trust him  
> #he tinkers and makes many lil inventions  
> #all of them are hired detectives or fighters that work for the street guards or the crown and have all been put together on missions before  
> #but its jongtaes first time working together and They Like Each Other A Lot  
> #taem is aro and jong has the Biggest crushie on him and taem likes physical intimacy with people that hes close to or admires  
> #hes a big suck up is what he is  
> #also theyre making out and taems like so tell me... do u have any other hidden piercings that i can find with a lil... exploration  
> #jong does  
> #he got above the clitty pierced  
> #taem likes it so much when he finds it that he keeps playing with it before he even actually sees it and jong has to remind him like  
> #The Clitty Is Down There My Dude and taems like oh right sorry lmao  
> #its a lil stud with a gem for sexual pleasure on it and when taem actually gets to see it later after the mission ends and theyre home safe  
> #hes like lmao ofc


End file.
